{"id":76836,"date":"2018-02-08T17:52:03","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T00:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-school-board-holds-annual-day-long-retreat\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T18:25:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T18:25:48","slug":"dolores-school-board-holds-annual-day-long-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-school-board-holds-annual-day-long-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores School Board holds annual day-long retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dolores
Dolores school board members and Superintendent Scott Cooper listen as Randy Black, Colorado Association of School Boards director of member relations, speaks at their annual retreat.<\/span>Emily Rice\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Dolores School Board held its annual retreat at the Dolores Public Library on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Randy Black, Colorado Association of School Boards director of member relations, led the discussion.<\/p>\n

Board members and Superintendent Scott Cooper began the retreat by discussing the strengths of the board.<\/p>\n

Black pointed out that by starting with strengths, the discussion was less likely to get stuck in a \u201cweakness trap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Board members Vangi McCoy and Casey McClellan agreed that the board\u2019s attendance at CASB events is a strength in itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy attending CASB every year, we are intentionally investing time and money in board learning,\u201d McCoy said. \u201cI know we can always do more, but I think that is a strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board agreed that a large part of being a productive and successful board is getting to know one another\u2019s motivations for being on the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am always thinking of ways to elevate collective wisdom, and the ways you do that is to know the skills, passions and interests (of members of the board) and what people bring to the table,\u201d board vice president Kay Phelps said.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s standardized test scores were also discussed at the retreat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think the test scores are concerning, and we would all like to see them go up,\u201d board secretary Deanna Truelsen said.<\/p>\n

Members revisited the problem of lack of participation in standardized testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to see participation go up, and I definitely think it is a culture,\u201d board president Dee Prock said.<\/p>\n

Cooper pointed out that the students needed to understand the importance of the tests to do their best.<\/p>\n

Board members agreed that the parents also needed to understand the value of testing because they are the ones making the decision whether or not to opt their child out of testing.<\/p>\n

Prock pointed out that the state has taken notice of the numbers of \u201copt-out\u201d students and is making more information about testing available to students and parents.<\/p>\n

Black assured the district board members that \u201copt-out\u201d rates are high all over Colorado.\u201cPlease hear me say, this is not just about you guys, this is literally everywhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Board members also discussed the structure of their regular meetings.<\/p>\n

Black told the board the importance of interaction with constituents and proposed the idea of greeting them at the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are valuing them for coming to your meeting,\u201d Black said. \u201cYou don\u2019t sit behind a table until it is time to start the meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prock said the best part of the retreat for her was, \u201cunderstanding that the board meeting is a business meeting, but really truly respect the people who come to be a part.\u201d<\/p>\n

This topic led board members to discuss the physical layout of their meetings and consider a different floor-plan for better teamwork and community interaction.<\/p>\n

Phelps expressed the need for the board to communicate better with the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe district has been adding to where we see a need for emotional learning and enhancing what we are already doing,\u201d Phelps said. \u201cThat should all be articulated to our community. I think we are doing things better than might be communicated to the general public.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the last section of the retreat, board members discussed positive changes during their time on the board and the benefits they had gained from the retreat.<\/p>\n

Prock pointed out rising graduation rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is nice that you can feel and watch that over the years because there is so much change,\u201d Prock said. \u201cIt just was not like that when my 25-year-old graduated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black reminded board members that facing challenges and highlighting positives is key in operations. \u201cIn this era of anxiety, being OK with challenges is essential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cooper expressed his appreciation for the board members\u2019 time and how valuable the conversations were to him as superintendent.<\/p>\n

The Dolores School Board\u2019s next regular meeting is scheduled for Feb. 8. at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

discussed working together and with its community<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,44,103,13,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-76836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-schools-re-4a","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76850,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76836\/revisions\/76850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76836"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=76836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}